Poached pears with cinnamon ice cream

Keep leftover syrup in the fridge and add a dash to a glass of Champagne.

Serves: 6

Preparation time: 1 hour, plus infusing, chilling and freezing Cooking time: 35 minutes

6 ripe pears

300ml dessert wine

150g granulated sugar

1 vanilla pod, split, seeds scraped out 1/2 lemon, sliced

For the ice cream

1 cinnamon stick

300ml whole milk, preferably Jersey 4 medium egg yolks

125g caster sugar

1tsp ground cinnamon

300ml double cream

1 For the ice cream, put the cinnamon stick in a pan with the milk. Scald until hot, but not boiling, then leave off the heat to infuse for 30min. 2 Mix together the yolks, sugar and ground cinnamon in a bowl. Remove stick and blend milk into yolk mixture.

3 Rinse the pan and pour in the milk and yolk mixture. Cook over a medium to low heat, stirring constantly until thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon (do not overheat or the mixture will curdle).

4 Pass the mixture through a sieve into a chilled bowl. Chill in fridge.

5 Stir cream into cooled custard, then churn in an electric ice cream maker according to the instructions, or put in the freezer, taking out to beat every 2hr until smooth and frozen.

6 Peel, halve and core the pears. Put the wine and granulated sugar into a deep pan with the vanilla pod and seeds. Heat gently to dissolve sugar, then add the pears and lemon, and simmer for 15-25min until tender.

7 Transfer the pears to a dish with a slotted spoon. Reduce the poaching liquid until lightly syrupy, pour it over the pears and leave to cool to room temperature.

8 Serve pears with a generous drizzle of syrup and a scoop of the ice cream.